


Thieves' Pride

by FireEye



Category: Seiken Densetsu: Legend of Mana
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, trope bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Worldbuilding!  Of Relevance: in case you can't tell, my LoM thieves guild is based on the SD3 thieves guild.</p></blockquote>





	Thieves' Pride

There was a frost across the marketplace, dusting everything from canvases and carpets, moon-metals and glassware in a shimmering glaze.  The Imperial City never slept, and few enough found reason to be out and about their business under the cold winter moon.

Under the crumbling eave of a boarded-up doorway, two young thieves huddled together under an old curtain for warmth.  Too old – or too proud, more like – to huddle up in the dens with the children, where a dozen or more small bodies would keep the small, enclosed chambers under the ruins comfortably warm, they braved the chill of night in the streets.  Unable to sleep, Sol shifted, arms tightening across her chest as she balled her hands tighter under her them.  Mani wrapped his arms tighter around her, clenching his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering – he obviously wasn’t sleeping either.

Being all grown up had its disadvantages.

“I think we should find a better spot,” Sol sighed, watching her breath turn to frost.

“I doubt there is a better spot,” Mani rasped, voice warming her ear.  “At least here my butt’s warmed the stoop enough to sit on it.”

With a shake of her head, Sol stood up, pulling the makeshift blanket with her.  Mani gripped the other end, tugging it back towards him.

“There’s gotta be at least eight inns in this city,” Sol said.  “One of ‘em ought to have a free room.”

“Rooms cost lucre, mush-in-a-box-for-brains.”  Her partner let go of the curtain, and Sol stumbled back a step.  “We’re a bit short right now.”

“Some thief you are,” Sol scoffed, wrapping the cloth tight around her shoulders.  “There’s lucre everywhere.  We simply need to find some.”

~*~

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Mani hissed, and Sol shushed him.

“Who would dare allow harm to a Priestess of the Goddess?” she asked.

She was wrong on that count.

The game was simple enough: convince a wealthy benefactor to foot the bill for your extravagances.  All dolled up in the garb of a holy woman of Wendel – lifted off a silk vendor’s stall not two hours earlier and converted to the task – Sol recounted her woeful tale of having been set upon by bandits and losing everything but her life... and her ever faithful eunuch.  At that, Mani barely suppressed a snigger in time to disguise it as a sniffling sob.

The burly merchant gave a wolfish smile as he listened to her fabricated plight to the very end, then ordered his mercenaries to grab her.

“Hey, let her go!”

A hand grabbed him by the collar, lifting him almost entirely off his feet.  The merchant inspected him with a keen eye, and Mani froze.  He had seen that look before.

Sol kicked her way loose from one pair of hands, and spun about to bloody the nose of the second mercenary behind her.  In the same instant, the merchant screamed, clutching his hand – now minus three of his fingers.  Mani dropped to the ground, bloodied dagger in hand.

A breath later, the pair stood shoulder to shoulder, knives out.  Two more mercenaries had appeared out of the darkness.

“Beat it?” Mani asked, shifting his stance.  In agreement, Sol nodded, “Beat it.”

They turned and fled into the night, taking to the paths that only thieves would know for certain.  In no time at all, they had lost all signs of pursuit, and were back among the impoverished ruins of the lower city.  Crouching in an abandoned building, they gasped for breath.

“Ugh,” Sol sighed as Mani sank to the icy hearthstones.  “Who _would_ harm a servant of the goddess?”

“Slavers.”

Sol’s eyes lit up as her partner pulled the merchant’s purse from his shirt and, shaking it in hand, inspected its contents.  “How’d we do?”

Mani’s mouth twisted into a welcome, if thin smile, and he shrugged.  “Good enough.”

“Even with the Tithe?”

Mani laughed breathlessly, tossing the purse to her.  “Oh, _yeah_.”

~*~

They set aside all but a fraction of their newly acquired wealth for the Tithe, to distribute amongst the poor and the destitute the next morning.  Even their meager share would be enough to see them through the turning of the moons.

In comfort, no less.

The traveler’s inn they had chosen in the heart of the upper city was well-fitted to a nobler caste, with all the plush pomp that came of a lucrative life.  For a pair of thieves in on their luck, it was enough to be warm and fed.

The pair lay together beside the hearth-pit, in a nest of blankets pulled from the bed, Sol’s head on Mani’s lap.

“You know,” Mani remarked, studying the patterns in the jewel-encrusted ceiling overhead, “The Khan will kill us if he finds out how bad we screwed that up.”

“So don’t tell him.”  Sol yawned.  “Let him sleep in the catacombs on his _cold_ pile of gold, without ever having to know how badly Thieves of the Guild can screw up.”

Smirking, Mani ruffled his fingers through her hair.  The fire beside them burned, warm and cheerful.

It certainly beat being out on the streets.

**Author's Note:**

> Worldbuilding! Of Relevance: in case you can't tell, my LoM thieves guild is based on the SD3 thieves guild.


End file.
